Grieg Songs Op 67/60/25 – Ellen Westberg Andersen

Outstanding Grieg from Ellen Westberg Andersen

The award-winning soprano Ellen Westberg Andersen presents togehter with one of Norway´s most established pianists, Jens Harald Bratlie, some of Grieg´s finest music set to poems on this album. Together they masterfully evoke the depth that is inherent in Grieg´s successful marriage between poems and music. With these songs Grieg shows that he undoubtedly had a masterful grip on the genre, from the six Ibsen-poems, via Vilhelm Krag´s poems, to one of the most beautiful song-cycles ever written for the female voice: Haugtussa, written by Arne Garborg.

Westberg Andersen and Bratlie manage to communicate some of the most wonderful songs from the Norwegian romantic tradition in a brilliant way – not surprising considering their background. Westberg Andersen debuted in Oslo in 1978 after studies at music academies in Lübeck and Århus, and has performed on several german operastages, amongst them Dortmund, Lübeck og at the Städtische Freiburg. She was a guest performer at the Norwegian Opera between 1985-1990 as Musette in «La Bohème», Margaretha in «Faust» and as Susanna in «The Marriage of Figaro». In 1978 she received the Possehl-prize and in 1984 she received the Edvard Grieg-prize.